Archive By Section - Local Columns

Whether you are an ardent sports fan or just a casual observer you really can't go wrong taking a few minutes out of your schedule to sit down and watch the Olympic Games. Chances are, you get one of the many channels that are carrying them, with nearly nonstop action all day, depending on where you turn.

It's bedtime at Villa Paloma and as I make my way upstairs after turning off the lights and ensuring doors are locked, comes the time where I need to make my claim on what's left of the real estate on our California king as the TV flickers the nightly news.

All right, I can tell on myself. This column and the ones our reporters periodically provide for this page are due on the Friday before the next Wednesday's paper. Typically, a 5 p.m. Friday deadline, though I have been known to let people email them to me on a Saturday as long as I know it's coming and can still get it proofread in time for the page to be built. But it has been an extremely busy time for me so I gave myself a break and put the deadline off until – yikes! – Monday. Besides, I ...

Another year is coming close to an end. Every year seems to go by faster and faster. I have heard after a certain age everything starts rolling downhill. I don't believe that is entirely true, but I do believe the speed has increased each year.

DEAR DIDI: I am hoping you can help solve a disagreement that my husband and I have been having. We love your column and your answer will be our 'tiebreaker' of sorts. My husband thinks our dog should spend nights outside in the yard to protect our home. I feel sorry for him and want him in the house but my husband says I baby him too much. What do you think? Caring Mom in Manteca

Timewise, we have fallen back, hopefully taking advantage of that extra hour of sleep over the weekend. Daylight Saving Time has ended and we have, incredibly, entered the final two months of the year with major holiday celebrations fast approaching. Halloween is over; recent windy days have kicked up swirls of leaves and the possibility of rain has returned to the forecast.

They say you can never go back. Well you can. But it will have changed and nostalgia will be all that remains. On a recent trip to England which I left for the United States more than 50 years ago, I got to visit the primary school that my sister and I attended when we were seven or eight years old.

Articles by Section - Local Columns

With so many quality police shows, dramas, premium channel series, and sports to watch on TV, one of my guilty pleasures of television watching these days is a couple of reality TV shows where I just get to disengage my thinking brain and get to become more of a sarcastic, judging, critical SOB than I already am.

So I am not sure if acrophobia – the fear of heights – or vertigo – a feeling of sudden onset dizziness – are exactly what I experienced, but both seemed to play a role in my recent overnight trip to San Fran.

A few weeks ago Disneyland appeared to be Ground Zero for a measles outbreak that led to 17 identified cases in the US. Since then, at last count, there are now over 120 confirmed cases of measles in the country, possibly due to "satellite" outbreaks as those persons returned home from "The Happiest Place on Earth."